Global corporates pushing women to the top of hierarchy through training programmes

The 30 women who participated in the programme were a fairly varied lot in themselves and Saxena presented several examples at the Catalyst seminar. One example was that of a high potential whose career stalled after she became a mother.One of the first issues Ravneet Gill turned his attention to after taking charge as CEO and managing director of Deutsche Bank India was gender diversity.

The bank’s record might have looked fine to the casual observer, but there was a wicked problem lurking below the surface. Around 40% of the bank’s employees were women, a ratio that was better than most other Indian corporates. At middle to senior level – vice presidents and above – the number fell to 25%, which still wasn’t bad.

At top management level, however, the number fell drastically. Only one of the 14 members of Deutsche Bank India’s Executive Committee (ExCo), which consists of business and function heads, was a woman, the kind of representation that went against the grain of global diversity policy. Gill recalls the dilemma he faced. “What example were we setting for young women? They needed role models and assurance that if they stay the course, apex management positions would be within their reach,” he says.

Over the past four years, Gill has inducted five more women into the ExCo, taking the total to six, or 40% of the group. “Diversity is a must-have value, on par with discipline. Across the bank, diversity is now accepted as an intrinsic aspect of our culture,” he says.

Deutsche Bank is not the only one designing interventions to help women make it to the top. A growing number of corporates have realised that the regular organisational processes don’t always ensure representation of women at the top. As the pyramid narrows, women tend to lose out.This was the situation at HSBC three years ago when it launched a programme called Ascend, aimed specifically at moving women from middle management to senior management. Making a presentation on the initiative at a symposium organised by global consulting firm Catalyst last month, HSBC HR head Vikram Tandon explained the genesis of the programme: “HSBC just didn’t have women in senior positions, despite our best efforts. We wanted to have women at Board-level, but there were no contenders.”

Timely Intervention Thirty women participated in Ascend and by all accounts, the programme has been an unqualified success. “The results have been better than expected,” says Tandon. “Our target was that five of the participants should be promotion-ready by the end of the programme. The actual number of promotions was seven. Of the rest, 70% have moved to roles that are more challenging. Several of the participants have taken up international assignments.”A recent research study by YSC finds that women become more ambitious once they reach a certain level of seniority.Conducted in league with consulting firm YSC, HSBC’s intervention began with biographical interviews of the participants. Most had been with the bank for 10 to 15 years and many had been star performers in their initial years. “We wanted to understand what was holding them back,” says YSC managing consultant Ambica Saxena. “Most were not putting their hands up when growth opportunities presented themselves. They were stuck in their comfort zones.”

The 30 women who participated in the programme were a fairly varied lot in themselves and Saxena presented several examples at the Catalyst seminar. One example was that of a high potential whose career stalled after she became a mother. “She was conflicted,” says Saxena. “Her father had always told her that men and women are equal and she had lived by that credo. But her mother had stressed that career was secondary for a woman and raising the children should be her priority. She unconsciously let that idea to take hold and her career took a back seat.”

Once the issues were articulated, YSC created a development programme for each of the participants. One of the key elements at this stage was the assigning of a sponsor to each participant, who would proactively promote their careers. In this HSBC consciously moved away from the mentoring system which most organisations favour.

Unlike mentors, sponsors do more than listen and provide advice -- they are supposed to bring the full force of their knowledge and experience to help their candidate get ahead. “Women are always over-mentored and under-sponsored,” says Saxena. “In the Ascend programme, the sponsors were asked to help their candidates get the top jobs by pointing them to challenging assignments, helping them prepare for the interviews, telling them what the unwritten rules are.”

Bracing for Challenges The willingness to relocate is key to upward mobility and this has been seen as a woman’s Achilles Heel. One of the successes of the HSBC programme is that it has persuaded woman to accept this challenge. Some have even volunteered for foreign assignments.

Pepsico India is addressing the issue in a different way. Five out of the 14 members of Pepsico’s ExCo are women – including its CFO, CHRO and head of the nutrition business – but it needs to create a next level of female leadership if it is to maintain this top level gender diversity ratio.

To this end, Pepsico has been mapping career paths for its women that take into account the issue of relocation by identifying roles that are location-neutral. “Women usually have issues with relocation till a certain age, when they are raising children,” says CHRO Suchitra Rajendra. “We want to help them through this period. When they reach senior levels, these things are generally not an issue.”

Indeed, a recent research study by YSC finds that women become more ambitious once they reach a certain level of seniority. The trick is to get them there.

Meanwhile, HSBC is now set to graduate the second batch of Ascend participants and indications are that this batch will be as successful as the previous one. How are the men taking it? “There’s now more awareness of this programme throughout the organisation. The men realise that women are getting special attention. They are asking if they can get something similar,” says Tandon.

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